UKC

Has anyone watched this? I had a quick watch of the first half of the episode 1 last night before bed, it's really good and if you're interested in middle eastern politics/world politics you should watch this. It's a 3 part series, parts 1 and 2 are on iPlayer at the moment.

Link here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b09m53d9

Scary isn't the word!

It always makes me wonder, "how much is enough?" does there ever come a point where these richer than rich people think, I've got enough now I can stop creaming loads of money from the people.

I realise this is a little simplistic and suspect it becomes more of a sign of "respect" for them to get their slice.

Yes I watched this last night. Shocking how much corruption they have been allowed to get away with over the years with the UK governement and business, it seems, among the worst culprits.

It was far more interesting than I thought it would be, worth a watch.

Episode 1 was frightening. It exposed the recklessness of the Saudi state and of wealthy Saudi individuals in their obsessive hatred of Shias, which makes the Palestine-Israel conflict look like a small running sore by comparison.

Episode 2 was about the scale of the corruption and how it all began. My thoughts turned frequently to Private Eye as I have often wondered how quietly influential that magazine is in drawing attention to scandal. Towards the end the programme talked about the fabulous wealth of Mohammed bin Salman and their coverage could almost have been lifted straight from a paragraph on MbS in the current edition of Private Eye. Or vice-versa perhaps. 

Terrifying as it was, I thought the most telling thing was the guy at the end who said that if anything happened to Saudi Arabia, it would be very bad for the world and for the region; maybe it is the lesser of many possible evils that could result from the instability that would follow if the house of Saud fell. A bit like Saddam in Iraq.........  Though there does seem to be grounds for hope in reforms now starting and I think it would be unrealistic for the west to ask for too much too soon.